Building 29 “Figure on the Doorstep”

“My doctor told me today that the cancer has begun to spread, and that I am likely too weak to really consider doing chemo. It makes sense obviously. I have struggled with maintaining a healthy weight my entire life and it was going to come to a head eventually. But there is so much more left for me now than there was when I started.

Years ago, not eating or drinking felt like a choice I had to make, and that the only real risk was to myself and my health. People didn't need to worry about me, as my body proved that it could endure just about everything I could throw at it.

But now I know the truth.

My body never endured what I did to it. Even with all the efforts I made to try and get myself back to a state of real health, the years of abuse and neglect have finally added up, and now the piper is due, and I have no more fight left in me. But that isn't good enough of an answer now is it?

I can't just stop the fight now that I am on the edge of losing. Even if the chemo kills me, I need to fight on, because if I don't then the world around me falls apart. I have tried everything I and my doctors can think of to try and put on weight and build up reserves, but my body seems to actively fight these efforts now.

I still want to fight, but my body doesn't.

I received a visit almost a year ago today. I was sitting at home, enjoying as much as I could the sensation of hunger that was sitting in the penumbra of my mind. It is a state of fog that I consider to be a respite from the pain, but at the time it was simply a steady state of being.

The knock on the door came suddenly, and it took a great amount of effort to rise myself from my chair.

I hadn't eaten in three days you see, and scarcely any water had entered me in that time. It was not something I had done consciously. At that time it was simply a pattern, an ebb and flow that more often than not resulted in me receiving a phone call that would rouse me into action.

As I headed towards the door, the pangs of hunger gave way to the feeling I now maintain virtually all the time. Some may call it anxiety, but I would call it dread.

I looked out the window, and I could see the figure standing there, their face covered by a wide brimmed, black hat, their overcoat lacking a solid state. From under the brim of the hat, two sparks of light peered back at me, and it was like peering into the abyss. I tried to fight the fear rising up in me, but looking upon the person on my doorstep filled me with a terror that I could scarcely imagine even in childhood.

I desperately wanted to close the blinds and shut out the person on my porch, but I could not find the will. Despite my fear and my revulsion, some part of me felt a compulsion, a need to open the door. I knew if I did, it would not bring about anything good, but if I didn't the feeling of pain in my chest would likely never leave.

As I opened the door, the cold air of the night striking me, the smell of sulfur and goat's milk assailed my senses. I nearly retched on the spot, but something about the figure in front of me focused my attention like a thunderclap. In that instant, all the hunger fell away, and I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that I had become ravenously, overwhelmingly thirsty.

“Knird eht noitabil,” they commanded, as they offered me a cup from the folds of their flesh/coat.

I couldn't think. I didn't think. I just drank, and as I did I could feel my mind clearing, even as my throat constricted, causing me to vomit up what I had just attempted to take in. The drink tasted of sour milk and clay, and I have been unable to eliminate the sensation of it in my mouth from my memory.

They waited as I recovered from what they had given me, the sounds of the night suddenly loud and painful. I clasped my hands over my ears and curled over, but as they spoke, the voice broke through the muffling of my hands.

“Uoy t'nac pots tahw si gnimoc. Uoy nac ylno yaled ti. Thgif no elttil drib. Ruoy srehtaef era sniahc.”

I started screaming then, and as far as I have gathered I didn't stop until they forced me to go to sleep. My neighbor called the police, and I woke up in the hospital. They put me on a food regime, along with IV and supplements. I had dropped into a coma after a severe infection developed in my lungs. They said that my tests suggested that I had breathed in a overwhelming amount of smoke.

I am shaking now, and I am shaking most of the time. I am told that it is not uncommon with those with neurological issues stemming from the sickness. I have tried to get better, to put myself where I need to be to be strong enough.

I am willing to fight on as long as it takes.

My body is not, and I can't stop that. I don't have very long.

Ew t'nod evah yrev gnol.

Pleh em.

Esaelp Pleh em.

I t'ntsum eid.

Ton tey.”

This was sent to me directly, and I have tried following up with the information they provided. I was told that the girl who wrote this succumbed to her cancer shortly after sending the email, and that she had fought hard till the very end. She was buried in the family plot, and was survived by her father and her older brother.

A day later, I received a new email from her email address. Whoever sent it is a cruel person, using a dead girls email like that.

It was written in the same backwards sort of writing that my father and I used to use when I was little. It is amazing how easy it is to pick up, but it isn't something you naturally follow without having the right state of mind.

“Eerht erom tfel.”

I told my co worker Eric about the email. He hasn't talked to me since, but I have seen him talking to my supervisor on several occasions.

I don't mind really. He has been weird around me the last few weeks, and it isn't as if I work with him directly anymore.

I have chatted a little more with the new girl. Apparently she is studying art at a local art museum. Her name is Naomi too. Small world I suppose.